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Redefining networking: How to build lasting career momentum
In this article, ou co-founder Rich breaks down 8 simple, practical tips to reconnect with your network, build trust, and stay front of mind for opportunities, all while giving as much as you gain.
Picture the scene.
You've just arrived at a corporate venue. You've picked up your name badge. You're thrust into a room full of people you don't know.
You feel obliged to try & scurry around introducing yourself to folks you'll probably never see again. If you're honest with yourself, you're tempted to hide under the canapé table. And you'll definitely find an excuse for an early exit.
This is what most people picture when we use the term "networking". And it understandably makes most of us want to run a mile.
What's more, it's almost totally ineffective. These aren't people who know you. So how can they trust you or advocate for you?
"Keeping in touch with people who know your capabilities & will advocate for you."
Typically these are people you've worked or partnered with in the past. Probably peers or former bosses. People who know you & like you. Or they might be people that those people have introduced you to with their backing.
When you reframe networking like this, your shoulders relax. In fact, you can picture that re-connecting with these people might actually be quite enjoyable.
Don't get me wrong. If you keep up with this group, it's not uncommon that one of them will give you a call at some point and ask you to join their team. (The timing might not be right. The opportunity might not be right. But it's always great to be asked).
Much more likely is that they'll think of you when someone in their network is chatting to them. It could be that their friend wants an expert point of view. Or a supplier recommendation. Or that they're building a new team and asking for suggestions. Either way, you'll be front of mind for an introduction.
Implement these 8 simple tactics to make networking easy, enjoyable & accelerate your career.
Rich started his career at McKinsey before working as a freelance consultant alongside co-founding Movemeon. Over 15 years he's helped over 5,000 organisations to hire - organisations of all sizes in all industries, globally - and developed a unique overview of what works to build successful, happy careers right up to CEO level.
He has always given advice via LinkedIn message to anyone who's asked for it. And in 2025 - encouraged by his network - he formalised this through the creation of OnUpBeyond .
The 2025 pilot of his career advisory sessions was massively oversubscribed, despite a price point in the thousands 000's. Those who managed to grab a place consistently reviewed the experience as 5*.
In July 2025, he relaunched his support in a truly accessible way via The Career Momentum Hour.
The job market heats up: Hiring demand hits an 18-month peak
Hiring demand surges, talent supply shrinks: Inside Q2’s shifting job market where Private Equity booms, advisory hiring accelerates, scale-ups rebound, and corporates face mounting pressure to compete
Hiring demand for permanent roles is at its highest we’ve seen for 18 months. We saw an initial strengthening in the market last quarter, but expected this to have dropped given the macroeconomic environment and the impact of tariffs.
However, after a small initial dip in May, the hiring market has continued to grow, reaching its 18-month peak in Q2 2025. As the hiring market has strengthened, the talent index (measuring the supply of great talent on the market) has started to drop. Between Q1 2024 and Q2 2025, the market index averaged at an all time high of 90, before dropping to 75 in July 2025. This is only slightly above the average for 2023 (70), when companies were still struggling to hire post COVID and the Great Resignation.
In this article we look at how different types of companies are being affected by these broader trends. We find that Private Equity is seeing a boom in demand for talent, driven by an increase in deals and an increased focus on operational improvement across ever larger portfolios. We were also surprised to see, despite the coverage that AI is already disrupting the advisory market, that there has been strong growth in hiring across consulting firms.
Finally, we look at the different dynamics of the freelance and permanent markets: Whilst the permanent market has definitely tightened, with visibly less supply, freelance is still a high supply market for talent. We hypothesise that this is more driven by the broader freelance revolution, and a sharp increase in freelancers/ interims available who have chosen to freelance for more control over their work life (which projects they do; hours worked etc.). This might also be contributing to the righter permanent market.
The Index is designed to give employers a read on the talent market: is it competitive? Are candidates open to new roles? Are certain industries or job types seeing more traction than others?
Below is how the index has changed over the last five years. For context, it's worth understanding the Movemeon community:
In terms of interpreting the numbers:
The Talent Index has dropped from 80% last quarter to 76% this quarter. This is considerably below the average over the preceding 12 months of 90, and suggests it is getting harder for companies to hire the talent they need - in other words, demand is increasing as supply decreases. For a point of comparison, it is now at the average level of 2023, where a number of companies were still struggling to hire post COVID and the Great Resignation.
To understand the drivers of this, we are looking into the changes to hiring demand across different company types.
There has been a very clear strengthening in the hiring market since January 2025. We’ve seen hiring activity broadly double over the past 6 months, although this has been very varied by company type.
Whilst Private Equity, Advisory and Scale-ups are fuelling demand in the hiring market, Corporates and Large Enterprises are continue to lag. When we compare the current hiring market with the previous 12 months an even clearer picture emerges: Private Equity funds and portfolio companies have seen sustained growth, whilst hiring across Corporates and Large Enterprises has declined.
There are two primary drivers for hiring demand for PE-backed businesses - the number of new deals and the requirement for portfolio operations support.
New deal activity: There’s been a modest increase in PE deal activity in H1 of this year. This can be shown by EY’s market pulse: there were 275 deals over $100mn vs. 200 in H1 2024. However, this is a long way short of the 400 that were averaged in 2021, and analysing the amount of dry powder in the market, it feels like these are still depressed numbers. Interestingly, based on conversations with funds over the summer period, we’ve noticed a large uptick in deals which we are confident will carry on into H2, so are expecting PE deal activity becoming an increasingly strong driver of hiring demand. This is further supported by EY’s pulse survey, with an overwhelming majority (68%) expecting an uptick in deployment.
Portfolio operations support: The requirement of portfolio operations support is driven by the size of the portfolio and the transformation requirement to achieve the VCP. We believe the increased requirement of support has been the main driver of the increased demand in H1. As funds have held onto portfolio companies for longer, there has been a multiplier effect on the support required. Not only are there more portfolio companies to support, longer holding periods require more frequent chnage to VCPs, often with more hands-on transformation/ operational support. This is against a backdrop of an increased focus on operational improvement, as interest rates have risen and financial leverage has become less effective.
The risks posed by AI to consulting have been widely written about.
It’s clear that AI poses existential threats to the current consulting operating model. At the core of the consulting proposition is synthesising complex data, market intelligence and driving to clear recommendations. All things that AI will be able to do better than humans. It’s not an if; it’s a when.
However, we’ve seen strong growth in hiring for advisory firms. So what’s going on?
Our initial hypothesis was that boutique advisory firms pivoting to focus on AI were growing fast and therefore needing to hire. This would suggest that rather than the advisory segment growing, that it was more a case of people moving from large consulting firms to smaller ones. However, when we ran the numbers, it became clear that hiring demand was coming from both both boutique and large advisory firms.
What this suggests is that the short-term impact of AI on consulting talent has been over-played. It might also indicate another trend at play: Consultancies going through a period of growth as their clients invest in getting to grips with what AI means for them and their operating model. What remains to be seen is if this is a temporary blip, or the future of consulting.
The scale-up market has been depressed since the 2020-21 VC-driven bubble. The focus has increasingly been on the bottom line, and for many this has meant going into survival mode to elongate runways or drive towards cash-flow positive business models.
There has understandably been a big focus on AI scale-ups, and there is an increasing concern among many that there may be a new bubble forming around AI. But when we look at the hiring demand we’ve seen, it’s been broad and feels like more a return to normal levels.
When we look at the increase in hiring demand, alongside the change in the Talent Index, it’s interesting to see that despite the growth in hiring there is still a lot of supply; the Talent Index remains stubbornly at 94%, well above average in the market. This suggests that this is still a market where there is a lot of talent looking - driven by 2-3 years of depressed hiring.
Large Enterprise hiring is trailing well below the growth we’re seeing across Private Equity, Advisory and Scale-ups. Not only is it below the average demand it’s seen over the last 18 months, it’s also reduced in growth over the last three months.
What’s interesting is that this doesn’t mean there’s oversupply in the market. We were expecting to see a very high Talent Index - indicating there’s a lot of talent in the market looking for new roles. However, at just 58%, Large Enterprises and Corporates have the lowest value of any of our different company types. This suggests there is a real attraction challenge - the growth of PE, and to some extent scale-ups, is taking talent away from more traditional routes like joining the Strategy team of a well-recognised, large, global business.
If Private Equity and Scale-ups continue their growth - we foresee this being a hard part of the market to hire in for the foreseeable future. It’s for this reason that we’re starting to see an increase in freelance and interim demand across Large Enterprises.
Whilst the Talent Index has tightened for permanent roles, it appears to be more resilient in the freelance market, where a continued over-supply of talent persists.
We’ve seen broadly consistent demand across freelance and permanent roles on the hiring side, so it feels like there is something a bit more fundamental at play on the supply side. We have written extensively on the freelance revolution that we are witnessing in the market - some of the very best talent choosing to enter the freelance market to have more control over the work they do, and their lifestyle. The more resilient talent index suggests that very strong supply on this side of the market could be the main driver. It might also help explain why we’re seeing the dip in the permanent market.
The return of the “war for talent”? It depends where…
Talent tightens, demand returns: How shifting market dynamics are creating new opportunities — and pressures — across hiring landscapes
This report marks the second instalment of Movemeon’s Quarterly Hiring Analysis — a regular update designed to help hiring managers and candidates stay ahead of the market across Private Equity, VC-backed scale-ups and large Enterprise businesses. Our insights are powered by over 1.8 million data points from the Movemeon platform, giving you a clear picture of how candidate interest and hiring demand are shifting.
At the heart of this analysis is the Movemeon Hiring Index — a scale from 0 to 100 that reflects how attractive the job market is for employers. In short: a higher index means higher candidate interest per role. When the economy slows, candidate supply tends to rise, pushing the index up. When hiring demand picks up and candidate availability falls, the index drops.
To find out more about hiring with Movemeon get in touch with our team here.
After 6 months in the second half of last year with a value between 90 and 100 (the highest values we’d seen, indicating high interest in new roles), the index dropped to 75 in January and 80 in February.
We look at the drivers of this change, highlighting how a drop in the freelance market index pre-empted a drop in the permanent market index. We then look at how these trends have varied depending upon industry, finding that Private Equity is starting to lose it’s talent edge, just as there has been increased demand for hiring in the market.
We conclude that all the drivers are there for a war for talent, but that this is likely to be localised initially to Private Equity backed-companies where we’re seeing both higher hiring demand coupled with a slight decrease in candidate supply. We forecast this to further expand into consulting and potentially corporates, driven by increased demand and reduced supply respectively.
The Index is designed to give employers a read on the talent market: is it competitive? Are candidates open to new roles? Are certain industries or job types seeing more traction than others?
Below is how the index has changed over the last five years. For context, it's worth understanding who the Movemeon community are:
The freelance and interim market has broadly mirrored the permanent one, but tends to shift first — reacting more quickly to changes in business needs and macroeconomic signals. This can be seen by the permanent having a slight lag from the freelance index, as well as often slightly dampened highs and lows.
Candidate interest in consulting and corporate roles is now at a one-year low. These sectors are beginning to feel the effects of tightening supply. In contrast, PE-backed companies — where hiring demand remains strong — are still benefiting from relatively high candidate availability, but that gap is closing thanks to slight increases in interest in start-ups/scale-ups as well as consulting.
The phrase “war for talent” was first coined by McKinsey in the late ’90s and resurfaced in 2022 during the Great Resignation and post-COVID hiring boom. Are we seeing a resurgence?
The answer lies in the balance between:
What we’re seeing is clear: Q1 2025 was the busiest hiring quarter since early 2022. This suggests that overall demand is returning — and it’s being led by Private Equity.
In fact, PE’s share of total hiring demand has grown significantly over the past two years. As deal volume picks up and portfolio businesses push ahead with transformation plans, the ‘war for talent’ is likely to intensify, albeit localised at first.
Whilst we expect this war for talent to be highly localised to Private Equity initially, we are forecasting that it will expand into consulting and corporates over the course of the next year. The expansion into consulting will predominantly be demand led: increased deal flow will result in more consulting work, which will mean more hiring in a slightly dampened market. For corporates the challenge will be supply led: their historic disadvantage in hiring ex-consulting talent compared with PE or consulting has further widened, meaning a small increase in demand will have a big impact.
The most popular career paths after consulting
Consultants often leave due to "up or out" models, lifestyle, and desire to own impact; find out what career paths are the most well-trodden.
Leaving consulting for other industries is more common than staying. Many consultants move on after a few years, whether for career progression, better work-life balance, or the opportunity to take on ownership roles. If you're wondering about jobs after consulting, here’s what you need to know.
Looking for expert coaching to support your career transition? Visit OnUpBeyond for tailored career advice and coaching resources.
From our discussions with Movemeon users and insights from our jobs board, these are the key reasons consultants transition to new roles:
Related Reading
Based on over 20,000 applications on Movemeon, here are the top industries for ex-consultants:
Large companies actively recruit former consultants, often placing them in higher-level roles than their non-consulting peers. The most common functions include:
Find out more about how to thrive in the corporate environment in our interviews with leaders.
Startups offer a fast-paced, dynamic environment for consultants looking to apply problem-solving skills in a hands-on way. Ex-consultants often join startups as:
Find out what it's like to be a Chief of Staff in our interview with Penfold CoS, Aidan Curran.
For those who enjoy consulting but want more flexibility, freelancing or starting a boutique firm can be a great path. Benefits include:
Many ex-consultants transition into private equity (PE) or venture capital (VC) due to their strong financial and strategic skills. Typical roles include:
Consultants used to flat structures may find corporate bureaucracy challenging. To navigate this, they should focus on building internal relationships, understanding decision-making processes, and adapting to longer project timelines. Seeking mentors within the organisation and leveraging their problem-solving skills to improve efficiency can also help ease the transition.
Unlike consulting, where advising is the focus, industry roles require direct ownership and execution. Former consultants can ease this transition by:
Some industries, like startups and PE, can be as demanding as consulting, requiring careful career planning. Former consultants should set clear work boundaries and seek roles that align with their lifestyle goals.
Check out Movemeon member, Jonny's story of leaving consulting, joining a startup and going through IPO.
Looking for your next step after consulting? Explore current opportunities on Movemeon.com.
What we’re doing to support your job search in 2025
Key 2024 job market trends and how Movemeon is helping candidates succeed in 2025.
2024 was a tough market to find a new job. We wanted to write this note, firstly to recognise the challenging market but also to explain what Movemeon is doing to help.
Whilst we’re proud to have grown by 15% as a business last year, we’re aware that demand for roles was at a decade-long high. Uncertainty in employers’ hiring plans has meant our values of full transparency have, at times, been hard to uphold. We implemented a number of key initiatives to make sure you were still hearing about every opportunity we were working on, and were receiving responses, and feedback, to any application you made.
This year, we are focused on offering even more to our community:
If there’s one thing you can do to help one another - it’s sharing relevant roles in your team/ company (“paying it forward”). 80% of our jobs last year came from our community - so thanks to all of you who have shared roles already. If you or one of your colleagues is hiring, click below and we can set up some time to see how we can help (data, insight, job description, hiring):
2024 was a tough market to find a new job. Our recruitment index showed as much, with demand for roles at a decade-long high. Whilst great news for companies hiring, it meant it was a very hard year for those who were looking for their next opportunity.
We’re very proud that Movemeon grew by 15%, and most importantly connected more than 2,500 of you with interviews at exciting companies. However, the tough market meant living up to our values was harder than ever before.
We built Movemeon out of our frustration with the lack of transparency in recruitment. Our values are therefore focused on empowering you in your job search: we show you all jobs for you to discover, as opposed to only calling a select few people. Uncertainties in employers’ hiring plans, longer interview processes, and increased competition, has meant our approach of full transparency has been hard: at times it would be easier not to market roles to everyone; and at times it would be easier to not give the full picture on hiring processes. However, this transparency is why we set up Movemeon, and know it’s what you value. We are therefore even more proud that our team has upheld these values during a tough market.
We built Movemeon to help you discover great opportunities you wouldn’t have found elsewhere. We were frustrated with traditional recruitment companies, and wanted to know what jobs there were out there that would be a good fit with our experience.
Whilst we were proud to be able to share over 900 jobs with you last year, we are also aware that there are plenty more opportunities out there, and that we owe it to you to find them. We’ve therefore proactively been building our US and APAC teams - markets which are seeing rapid growth, and places we know many of you are.
We’ve been very lucky that our community (you!) shares opportunities in their team when they’re hiring. Given you understand our proposition, you know that working with us ensures you reach the best in the market. If there’s one way you can help each other, it’s paying it forward by sharing these roles. If you have any potential opportunities, please don’t hesitate to get in contact:
We have also worked hard over the last year on building a new team to identify new roles more proactively. All with the single aim of making it easier for community members to share roles with us. Early indications are positive, with 55% more jobs posted in Q4 2024 than in Q4 2023.
How you’re presented really matters.
On average, hiring managers spend just 10 seconds looking at your application. That’s why we have our success team: To give you the best chance of being interviewed.
Our success team read through your screening questions and CV in detail. And ensure that all the most relevant and important information is clearly sign-posted. They also then speak to the hiring manager, and fight your corner.
Given our business model (we only get paid if you get hired), we are incentivised to get you the job (we only get paid when clients hire) - so are always here to help present you with the best possible chance.
Every application must receive a response. Whilst this is harder in a competitive market, there are no excuses for it not happening. As such, this is a central KPI for our team, and last year 93.6% of applicants heard back within two weeks.
And as far as possible, helpful and constructive feedback should be included. We have been working hard to ensure that we can live up to our values and provide as much information as we can about your application to you.
We are also focused this year on getting more actionable feedback from clients around why you’re not being progressed. When this is not possible, we are committed to provide you with an overview of what the candidates who are progressing have.
We know there’s a long way for us, and even further for the industry to go. This will be a continued strategic focus for us this year, and we welcome any feedback or thoughts you might have.
Last year, Rich, our co-founder, launched OnUpBeyond to help you build your best career in or beyond consulting / finance.
We’ve always wanted to offer more to our community, and are delighted that this has come to fruition this year. Focused on how you progress in your career, it offers courses, coaching, and roundtables to connect with a peer group of like-minded professionals. If you'd like to know more:
As our community has become more experienced, we’ve increasingly worked on more senior roles. In the last year we helped more companies than ever to hire Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs), Chief Transformation Officers (CTOs), Chief Commercial Officers (CCOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Operating Partners.
This level of hiring requires a more hands-on approach, for both our clients and for our candidates. As such, we are excited to be launching our Search proposition focused on Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Transformation at Enterprise businesses and Operating Partners in Private Equity (coming in Q2 2025).
If your next move will be at C-Suite level, please do keep your eyes open for the next update.
This year, we are focused on driving even more insights from our rich data set. We are in a unique position to share compensation, data and insights.
In case you missed any of it, here are our most popular articles of 2024 - which cover compensation and hiring trends.
We know how hard this market is, and we are here to help however we can. We also are constantly striving to improve. So if you have any thoughts on what else we should, and could, be doing - please don’t hesitate to email us at info@movemeon.com. We thank you in advance for any thoughts (and thanks also to those of you who kindly took the time to provide feedback in 2024 - it really is enormously helpful).
In the meantime, we wanted to say a big thank you for trusting us to help, and celebrate all the new jobs you found last year…
Global Pay & Satisfaction Index
Benchmark your pay, working hours and job satisfaction against your peers with compensation breakdowns by industry and functional experience.
Unlock exclusive access to the Movemeon Global Pay Index, the definitive resource for professionals seeking clarity on market compensation trends. Dive into data collected from 4,000+ global responses to benchmark your earnings across industries, seniority levels, and job types—whether permanent or freelance. With insights on pay by country, gender pay gaps, and working hours, this tool empowers you to negotiate better, plan your career, or benchmark hiring strategies.
Get exclusive access today and make data-driven career or hiring decisions!
Why do consultancies produce so many CEOs?
The future leader factories and what it means for hiring senior leadership roles
OnDesk recently ran the numbers - they looked at the CEOs of the US’s largest operating companies and analysed where people had started their careers. Of the top 8 most common companies, 6 are consultancies:
In this article, we look into what makes consulting alumni so well-suited to lead organisations. And what this means for you hiring for leadership positions in your team and organisation.
Consultants are exposed to a wide array of industries, challenges, and business models during their careers. This breadth of experience enables them to adapt quickly to new environments, making them invaluable as leaders in dynamic or fast-changing markets.
High-Profile Example:
Consultants’ ability to analyse diverse scenarios and develop tailored solutions makes them particularly adept at addressing complex, multi-faceted challenges. This versatility can mean the difference between an executive who only fits into a niche and one who can lead across functions and industries.
Consultants are trained to analyse problems methodically, using data to guide decision-making. For CEOs, this analytical rigour is crucial in navigating uncertainty and driving strategic priorities.
High-Profile Example:
Hiring managers should value candidates with consulting backgrounds for their ability to synthesise complex information into actionable insights—a skill essential for steering organisations through uncertainty and change.
A key focus of consulting is strategy development—defining clear goals, aligning resources, and ensuring execution. This mirrors the core responsibilities of a CEO, making consultants natural fits for leadership roles.
High-Profile Example:
Candidates with consulting experience bring a proven ability to think beyond immediate challenges and design strategies that position organisations for long-term success.
Consultants develop extensive professional networks through interactions with senior executives, cross-functional teams, and industry leaders. These connections often become a powerful asset in leadership roles.
High-Profile Example:
When considering candidates, hiring managers should recognise that consultants often bring with them a wealth of professional relationships that can facilitate partnerships, mentorships, and market opportunities.
Consulting firms invest heavily in leadership development, equipping their employees with early management responsibility and structured training programs. Consultants are often tasked with leading client projects and managing teams early in their careers, giving them a head start in developing the skills required for executive roles.
High-Profile Example:
This preparation translates into candidates who are not only strategic thinkers but also adept at managing teams, driving results, and navigating high-pressure environments.
Consultants are a great succession plan for your Board. They will bring with them a broad skillset, proven leadership ability and clear strategic vision. Whilst this is critical in leadership roles, it’s also an invaluable skillset to have throughout your organisation.
Despite the number of well documented redundancies across consulting, it hasn’t made the market any easier to hire in. We typically find clients are looking for an ex-consultant who has already made the adjustment into “industry”, be that a PE-backed company or an Enterprise business. They’ve therefore built up a track record of delivery and “operating” over the previous 5-10 years.
If you’d like to learn more about how you would bring this type of talent to your team or company, please do let us know.
Are you overpaying new joiners?
Our hiring market analysis shows a reduced pay gap in 2024; companies may be overpaying talent.
Using our proprietary data, we’ve analysed over one and a half million data points, and seen a seismic shift in the market. Two years ago, there was a large gap between the compensation candidates’ expected for a new job and how much employers were offering. Within just two years this has dropped to historic lows - suggesting that many companies “over-corrected” their salaries and are now effectively over-paying for new joiners.
In this article we look at how the compensation gap has changed over the last five years, driven primarily by supply-demand dynamics. We look at how this varies by company type, suggesting corporates have over-corrected their compensation, as well as Private Equity and Consultancies but for very different reasons.
Finally, we look at how this picture varies by alumni firm. McKinsey, BCG and Bain alumni have historically commanded a premium in the market, but we’re seeing early indications that this premium is decreasing. MBB expectations have only increased by a modest (and below inflation) level of 2% compared with 4% for the Big4 and 6% for boutiques.
Below you’ll see how the Movemeon compensation index has tracked over the last five years. We’ve analysed over one and a half million data points going back five years, looking at the gap between expectation and reality when it comes to comp. We see this as a measure of “friction” in the market, and an early indicator of inflationary pressures on wage growth.
For the numbers to make sense, it’s worth a quick recap of who’s in the Movemeon network;
How to interpret the numbers:
When we plot our hiring and compensation indexes together, it’s clear there’s a very strong causal relationship (an 85% negative correlation). The more in demand ex-consultants are, the more their compensation expectations increase, resulting in a larger compensation gap between job offers and expectations.
Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen the gap between expectations and job offers hit historic highs of 22% in 2021, before falling way down to 6%, -9% below the historic average.
We had assumed the drivers of the decrease in this gap were candidates re-adjusting their expectations downwards. This is historically what we’ve seen in very competitive hiring markets.
But this has not been the case. Over the past year, compensation expectations within our community have still increased at a healthy rate. The real driver of the expectation gap has been a very high increase in compensation being offered for jobs. This is clearly unsustainable in the longer-term, and feels like an over-correction in response to the higher consulting salaries and candidate expectations we saw in 2022-23.
For our latest salary information, you can view our benchmarking here.
When we look at our compensation index by company type, there are some very interesting trends.
Large corporates have a compensation gap of just 2%. This is much lower than historic averages, suggesting they have overcorrected compared with candidates’ expectations.
Scale-ups on the other hand have a gap of 13%. This is in line with historic averages and suggests that a focus on profitability combined with lower levels of VC-funding have ensured there hasn’t been an over-correction.
In the advisory space the picture is quite surprising. It’s been widely reported that it’s a tough market for consultancies, however, what our data shows is that those who are recruiting are prepared to pay a large premium - 8% in large consultancies, 5% in boutiques. We think this is being driven for two reasons: firstly, firms that are recruiting are growing, and as such are in a position to be paying for high performing (more expensive) talent; secondly, it is a hard market in which to attract ex-consultants given slow growth in the industry as a whole. To make it more appealing, bigger packages are being offered.
Finally, Private Equity is also paying a premium to outstrip expectations. This comes as no surprise and is also in line with historic norms in the sector. Private Equity is focused on attracting the very best, and as such is prepared to pay top decile compensations.
When you look at how compensation expectations have changed by alumni firm, an interesting trend emerges. McKinsey, BCG, Bain alumni have seen the lowest increase in their expectations - a modest (and below inflation) figure of 2.3%. This is broadly in line with other strategy firms, but under half what we’re seeing alumni of boutiques and the Big4 demand.
Despite the higher increase in expectation from boutique and Big4 alumni, McKinsey, BCG and Bain alumni are still paid a premium of over 12% compared to the median compensation.
If you’d like to find out more about how Movemeon can support your hiring, please get in touch.
Consulting careers - 11 insights on why people leave consulting & what they leave for
Our LinkedIn polls reveal consultants often leave for better work-life balance, targeting P&L roles or startups.
Every fortnight or so I run a poll on my LinkedIn. Given my area of expertise, the polls explore consulting careers (in and after consulting) - why people start, why they leave and what they leave for. Typically 600-1,200 people join in (a pretty decent sample size) and overall, these polls have been viewed by over 500,000 people with more than 15,000 participants.
Well, unlike many more linear careers, most consulting careers involve leaving consulting. So for a consultant, plotting a career is a bit of a minefield. And if you're trying to hire consulting-trained professionals, how best to attract them can be equally mind-boggling. So, I find the results of these polls particularly enlightening. Why?
In this article, I've collated 11 recent polls into 3 topics:
So, let's get into the data...
Summary: simply put, the majority of people who start a consulting career...
Consultants & former consultants - do you regret the time you spent / are spending in consulting?
Results: (link to data)
When you joined a consulting firm, was it as a "means to an end", or did you envisage a whole career in a consulting firm?
Results below (link to original data)
Do you regret leaving consulting?
Results below (link to original data)
What's the main reason you'd consider switching consulting firms / moving back to consulting?
Results below (link to original data)
Summary: simply put, the majority of people leave a consulting career (i.e, leave a permanent role in a consulting firm) in order to...
What's the main reason you left / would consider leaving consulting?
Results below (link to original data)
Leaving consulting - was work-life balance the main reason (or would it be, if you were to leave in the future)?
Results below (link to original data)
Consultants - how has your work-life balance changed through covid? I'm working..
Results below (link to original data)
Summary: simply put, consultants transition their careers out of consulting along the following lines...
Consultants - what company type do you find most appealing (as a post consulting home)?
Results below (link to original data)
Current & former consultants - what job type would you most like your career to lead to (or for more senior folk, which has it lead to)?
Results below (link to original data)
Freelancing - Are you more of less likely than 12 months ago to consider doing some freelance work?
Results below (link to original data)
Would it be helpful to know which post-consulting careers have the best pay, working hours & job satisfaction?
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Private Equity Firms: what questions should you ask?
Overlooking crucial questions when job hunting can lead to disappointment in the future and Private Equity firms are no exception.
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Given the intense competition, receiving an offer to join a private equity firm is quite a significant achievement, and the temptation to accept the offer as soon as you receive it without having done any proper due diligence is thus huge. Overlooking this crucial step of the job-hunting process can lead to serious disappointment in the future and the fast-moving private equity industry is no exception in that respect.
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